“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done…Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!”
President Donald Trump made this post on the morning that Israel struck Iran. Expressing the belief that the devastating attacks on Iran would weaken Iran’s hardliners and push them to capitulate to American terms and sign a nuclear deal, Trump said, “They should now come to the table to make a deal before it’s too late…You know, the [hardliners] I was dealing with are dead.”
The belief that the strikes will weaken the hardliners and improve the chances of forcing Iran to accept a deal that eliminates their peaceful, civilian nuclear program is wrong.
As the strikes on Iran began, U.S. officials insisted that they were not involved in any way. In the first several hours, the only statement coming out of Washington was from the State Department. Though Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Israel had “advised” the United States of the action, he called the action a “unilateral action” and said the U.S. was “not involved in strikes against Iran.” Trump posted that “The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran.”
But Israeli officials told a different story. Though Iran had long been planning for an Israeli attack if nuclear negotiations with the United States failed, they thought they were safe while talks remained alive and continued. They did not consider an attack just days before the next round of talks.
Israeli officials not only say that that was the plan, but that the United States, and Trump specifically, were part of the deception. Shortly after the strikes began, Israeli officials claimed that, while Trump and his team publicly opposed the attack, they privately gave a “clear…green light.” They even claimed that public reports that Trump had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a phone call not to strike Iran, “in reality the call dealt with coordination ahead of the attack.”
This claim has not been confirmed, and the U.S. has denied it. It does appear, though, that Trump gave, if not a “clear green light,” then tacit approval.
Though it is not clear that the attacks were coordinated with the Americans, comments made by Trump, like “Two months ago I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to ‘make a deal.’ They should have done it! Today is day 61” don’t help. He has also implied advanced notice of future plans: “the next already planned attacks” could be “even more brutal,” he warned.
Trump has not only confirmed that he knew the strikes were coming, he has been congratulatory, calling the strikes “a very successful attack.” “I think it’s been excellent,” he told ABC News. “We gave them a chance and they didn’t take it. They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you’re going to get hit. And there’s more to come, a lot more.”
Trump has even contextualized the military strikes as part of the negotiating strategy: “I couldn’t get them to a deal in 60 days. They were close, they should have done it. Maybe now it will happen.” Asked by a reporter whether he thought the military strikes would harm diplomatic efforts, he answered, “I don’t think so. Maybe the opposite. Maybe now they will negotiate seriously.”
“Now,” he posted, “they have, perhaps, a second chance!” Trump seemed to be leveraging the attacks to strengthen the American bargaining position: “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
But the dangerously risky strategy may have failed. Iran pulled out of the next scheduled round of negotiations. Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said that the United States “acted in a way that makes dialogue meaningless.” He explained that “it will be meaningless to participate in dialogue with the party that is the biggest supporter and accomplice of the aggressor.”
The bombs falling on Iran changed nothing in Iran’s negotiating position. “We are prepared for any agreement aimed at ensuring Iran does not pursue nuclear weapons,” Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said. But he continued to insist that there would be no deal that “deprives Iran of its nuclear rights,” meaning the right granted it as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful civilian purposes.
But there is also the possibility that the strategy will do damage to more than the short-term prospect of negotiations. There is the possibility that it will reinforce a long history of American actions that have discredited Iranian reformists who are willing to negotiate with the U.S. and improve relations and fortify hardliners who are not.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was elected on a promise of direct negotiations with the United States. Though Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supported him and fully empowered Iran’s negotiating team, he also warned that “One must not negotiate with a government like the US government. Negotiations with it is not wise, it is not intelligent, and is not honorable.” Later, Khamenei would further explain in a post that “[t]his same US president tore up the signed JCPOA agreement. How could we hold negotiations with US when we know they don’t fulfill their commitments?”
Khamenei’s scepticism was not born with Trump but has evolved out of a long line of U.S. betrayals and failures by Iranian reformers. Those betrayals have had the caustic consequence of discrediting the reformist camp and strengthening hardliners who are more hostile to the United States. Former reformist presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani, Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, and Hassan Rouhani have all suffered the same fate that now confronts Pezeshkian for daring to deal with America.
When Rafsanjani offered to exert Iran’s regional influence and intervene to help win the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon, President George H.W. Bush promised that Iran would get something in return because “goodwill begets goodwill.” Iran did what it promised to do; America did not do what it promised to do. Instead, the United States sent word that Rafsanjani should expect no American reciprocation. Rafsanjani and the reformists were discredited.
Rafsanjani tried one more time, staying officially neutral when Iraq invaded Kuwait while allowing the U.S. to use Iranian airspace. Once again, though, Iranian reformers gave but did not get. When the U.S. convened the Israeli-Palestinian Madrid Conference, they invited nearly every affected nation, but snubbed Iran, perpetuating their isolation.
Reformist president Khatami rejected terrorism; accepted a two-state solution, implicitly recognizing the State of Israel; aided the U.S. in its fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda; and played a crucial role in setting up Afghanistan’s post-Taliban government. In return, George W. Bush awarded Iran with a seat in the Axis of Evil. Khatami was stunned, and the reformists were discredited.
In 2013, Iranians returned a reformist to power. Rouhani bet everything on negotiating Iran’s civilian nuclear program with the United States. But Rouhani and the reformists were, once again, disgraced and discredited when Donald Trump, in his first term, broke America’s promise and pulled out of the JCPOA nuclear agreement.
The Iranian perception that the United States may have used diplomacy, and specifically the promise of a sixth round of talks, to cover for military strikes will make it even more difficult for an already distrustful Iran to trust the U.S. in any future negotiations. Contrary to the American bet that military strikes could weaken the Iranian hardliners and push forward the negotiations, they may make negotiations even more difficult, discredit Iranian reformers willing to negotiate, and strengthen the hardliners.
